


Waiting

by WordsforEmptySpaces (inkandpaperhowl)



Series: The Call [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-LWW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandpaperhowl/pseuds/WordsforEmptySpaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each of the four Pevensies reflect on what they remember of Narnia, and what they have forgotten, and wait for the day Aslan calls them home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Valiant

**Chapter One: The Valiant**

The fire was warm where Lucy lay before it, her head resting in her beloved brother’s lap. He stroked her hair absentmindedly, staring into the flames, lost in thought. She followed his gaze, but her vision blurred when her eyes filled with tears. There had been a time when she had gazed into the fire and the flames had been Fauns dancing, Satyrs playing, and Centaurs running, all to the tune of a Narnian lullaby. But that was lost to memory now.

Lucy turned away, letting the flames warm her back as she hid her face in her hands—her little girl hands, her ten-year-old hands. She missed the grown woman she had been in Narnia. Now her long glowing hair and her bright eyes were all the remained of that tall, proud adult. It didn’t seem fair to her, that she had to grow up again. Here, in this cold world, no one listened to her, or paid her any attention. In Narnia, the slightest turn of her head or wave of her hand had been followed by so many eyes. Here she was nothing but a little girl, in Narnia she had been a grown woman. Here she was a child. In Narnia, she was a queen.

She missed Mr. Tumnus so much it hurt. She missed Cair Paravel, and the wild wilderness that was Narnia so much that she had begun to cry when she saw the maps of the world, names like England and Europe so familiar, so strange, so _wrong_. She missed the swish of her long silk skirts. She missed the responsibilities of ruling a country. She missed the weight of her crown on her forehead.

There was an emptiness in her, where Narnia had been, and she longed for the day Aslan called her home. 


	2. The Just

**Chapter Two: The Just**

The fire was warm, but it barely reached Edmund where he sat reading. He shivered slightly, pulling a blanket closer around his shoulders. He shuddered further when he remembered a deeper, far more penetrating cold. He remembered the freezing depths of a palace made of ice, where he had been locked away. He wrapped himself into another blanket and moved closer to the fire, trying to forget the frigid cell he had been confined in.

He closed his book, unable to concentrate on the far away world while his mind was focused on a different one. He closed his eyes as well—eyes that were so full of wisdom and sorrow and longing—trying to forget. Adults said his eyes looked like those of a man who had seen much of the world, fixed in the face of an innocent child. Those grown-up eyes were all that remained of the man he had been. He used those eyes to see Narnia in everything. But England was not Narnia. Windsor Castle was not Cair Paravel. Finchly was not the Western Woods; everything was different. He choked on the dirty, polluted air that was nothing like the pure air of Narnia. In England he stayed inside when it rained instead of dancing in the puddles.

He missed the Fauns and Centaurs and Unicorns and all his other friends so much that sometimes he thought he caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head, it was only shadows playing in the light. His eyes filled with tears every time he stepped outside and saw an iron lamppost, and he had a fleeting glance of the wild, snowy woods. He missed Narnia, but he had a lasting fear of winter. He missed the weight of his crown on his forehead.

There was an emptiness in him where Narnia had been, and he longed for the day Aslan called him home. 


	3. The Gentle

**Chapter Three: The Gentle**

The fire was warm, almost too warm for Susan where she lay across the couch. She, like Edmund, closed her eyes. But where he was trying to block out memories, she was trying to recall all that she had forgotten. She longed slip into the darkness of sleep, where she could dream vividly of those times that were opaque to her mind in the light. As much as her heart wanted to remember Narnia, her head ruled her, as it always had, and told her it was nothing but a dream.

But it was a dream that flowered in the night, nurtured by the darkness as a rose is fed by the sun. This dream, she knew, was based in a reality she had forgotten. But sometimes, when she lay awake in the dead of night, she saw flashes of color, or heard bursts of sound that made her smile with memory. She remembered visions of beautiful gowns, made of silk and satin and brocade. She remembered the feel of the long cascading skirts surrounding her, and although she did not realize it, she still walked like a queen. She remembered hearing the voices of beings that were not human calling her, and every time someone said her name, she waited for the “Your Majesty” that accompanied it.

In the night when no one could make fun of her, she had found herself talking to the cat, or the mice in the cellars as if they could understand her and respond. She no longer went to the fabric shop with her mother, because she was drawn to the shimmering silk that they could not afford, and it was too painful to have that glimmer of remembrance. And although she would never admit it, she missed the weight of her crown on her forehead.

There was an emptiness in her where Narnia had been, and she longed for the day Aslan called her home. 


	4. The Magnificent

**Chapter Four: The Magnificent**

The fire was warm, but Peter did not notice it at all where he knelt before it, Lucy’s head in his lap. He forgot he was stroking her hair and lost himself in his memories. His eyes were fixed on the flames, but he did not see them, really, as his mind led him down paths he had not walked in a long time. Memories bombarded his mind, trying to break down his defenses and throw him into the despair he knew he would feel when he remembered that he was no longer a king.

His mind took him to times he thought he had forgotten. He remembered his first battle—he could hear the screams of the dying again, and see the sun reflecting off the gleaming weapons soon to be stained with blood. He shuddered to remember battles in Narnia, but smiled grimly at how they pitted man against man, instead of how battles were in England, where a man could kill someone without ever seeing their face. His mind turned to more pleasant things, and he found he could no longer tell if the heat he felt was from the fire or from the summers at Cair Paravel, splashing in the waves below the castle. Summers were not like that here, where the air was not pure and it was all he could do to breathe.

He missed the way people in Narnia had come to him to fix things when they went wrong. He missed the responsibility the country had placed upon him, and he missed the pride he had felt when he looked into the faces of his people. He even missed the battles, with the rush of adrenaline and excitement before the charge. He missed the strength he had had as a grown man, and the way people looked up to him. He missed being a king, and he missed his people. He missed the weight of his crown on his forehead.

There was an emptiness in him where Narnia had been, and he longed for the day Aslan called him home. 


End file.
